


What Freedom's Worth

by Lozza342



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Guns, Head Injury, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:40:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26513836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lozza342/pseuds/Lozza342
Summary: War rages to protect Japan’s largest megacities and their outermost resources from foreign entities. It’s all Yuutarou has ever known. After growing up with a noble goal of helping end it, he ends joining the Japanese forces. The potential to use high-tech armour and weaponry wasn’t the driving force in his determination like many of his other comrades. He truly wants to end it, so that no child has to grow up as he did...Yuutarou eventually rises to the rank of Lieutenant, leading a subdivision of soldiers on the front line. As such he finds himself on the field of battle more often than not. After a mission gone awry, his entire squadron eradicated, Yuutarou finds his sole solace in his commander. Tsutomu is a stoic and sometimes harsh leader, but Yuutarou knows he's trying to live up to something, to someone, and he knows a side to him that very few people do.
Relationships: Goshiki Tsutomu/Kindaichi Yuutarou
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	What Freedom's Worth

**Author's Note:**

> So! Here it finally is, my piece for the Cyberbunk Bang!
> 
> Thank you to [Kou](url) for betaing, and [Leah](url) for cheering me on.
> 
> And last but not least, [Ria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnguishofMyLove), for being my partner and creating such lovely art that almost brought me to tears! Links to her social media are as follows! Please, please check her out on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/rainbowbarf_), [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/rainbowbarfeverywhere/) and [Tumblr](https://rainbowbarfeverywhere.tumblr.com/)!!!
> 
> Art posted on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/lozza_342/status/1306649922842828801?s=20)
> 
> Reminder, you can find me mostly on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/lozza_342?s=20)!

His shoulders weigh him down, the warmth of a limp body draped around them. Yuutarou runs. He runs until his knee falters, sending him crashing to the ground with the precious cargo. The sounds are distant. Gunfire, shouting, the echoing screams of his comrades.

Then there’s Akira, sprawled out in front of him. He doesn’t make a sound. His chest rises and falls, bloodied lips parted as he takes valuable, shallow breaths. Yuutarou curses, crawling on his hands and knees to scoop him back up. No one had followed, or he’d be dead. He can’t run any further, his body protests every movement.

Still, he moves, dragging himself into the nearest building. It’s abandoned, dilapidated and beyond repair. Everything is in this godforsaken place. But it’s land, something the world runs short of.

Under shelter and cover, Yuutarou collapses again, supporting his friend as he shuffles into a dark corner. He has no medical supplies, nothing to help the way Akira keeps bleeding, his lips lose colour and his breath becomes still.

Yuutarou doesn’t process how much time passes as he sits there looking at the bloodied face of his former comrade, his best friend. All he knows is the battle is long since over. They lost. Everyone. Lip quivering, Yuutarou clutches Akira to him, a shaking hand reaching for his earpiece and clipping it into his own cracked communicator. There’s no static, but a clatter sounds on the other end, then laboured breathing.

“S-Squadron 3F?”

Yuutarou sobs, a pathetic sound, his first tears falling to Akira’s cheeks below him, running dried blood over his pale face. He thought he could check in and announce his status without breaking down. But hearing his voice, so full of tentative hope… How can he stay the stoic soldier he is supposed to be? “Lieutenant Yuutarou, reporting defeat. Surviving members: One.”

Silence.

“Target site clear for now, Lieutenant. Both sides took a hit, we’re sending 4B to original touchdown location. We can still call this a victory.”

 _Victory for whom?_ Yuutarou thinks bitterly, shivering under the icy bite of the wind howling through empty window panes. Akira’s body is now a cold weight on him, but he doesn’t have any strength to move to shift him off him. “Energy bar critical, Commander.” Yuutarou says, although his tone is dead and gone, any humour he meant by that dissolving in the acid of his misery.

“We’ll get you home. Send us your coordinates.”

-

The scented filtration system of the infirmary always gives Yuutarou a headache. It doesn’t help that shards of his supposedly protective helmet have made acquaintance with his skull, nor that the doctor shines a light directly into his eyes to test the response of his pupils. His head doesn’t stop throbbing.

The extra soft sheets are like heaven against his scarred and calloused skin, but no matter how comfortable he is, as if he’s floating on clouds, he can’t sleep.

The white noise of the aircraft is usually Yuutarou’s favourite lullaby, but now he just craves silence. He can’t remember the last time he heard true silence. Sure, he could requisition one of those noise-cancelling vacuum ear covers, but… it’s not the same. So he spends the night staring at the ceiling, experimenting with the colour-therapy remote, watching his own disco to help keep the images of his dead comrades from haunting him.

-

By the time he’s discharged, Yuutarou feels no more well than he did on the battlefield. He avoids going to his own squadron’s quarters, the mere thought of that “ghost town” setting his teeth on edge. Instead, against medical and psychological advice, he heads to the debriefing room.

Outside, Yuutarou swallows, pacing back and forth. He doesn’t even need to knock before someone notices him and opens the door. Startled, Yuutarou jumps, the man who had done so giving him a sympathetic look. “Sorry Lieutenant,” he says, stepping aside and holding the door open, “Come in, this won’t take long.”

Grimacing at those words, Yuutarou follows him inside the room, quickly glancing over the familiar, barren walls. It’s so surreal now, despite having debriefings in this room multiple times over the course of his time here, because he knows that what he’ll disclose, what he must relive, is the darkest day he’s ever known.

That’s saying something, in a world like this, where every day finds itself worse than the last. Yuutarou cannot begin to express his fear that a day could get worse than losing his entire squadron and his best friend. But he knows it can, because there’s someone more important to him than life itself, one that he won’t dare to ever lose no matter what the cost.

In a passing, morbid thought, he wonders if those lives he’d lost yesterday would be a cost he’d willingly pay.

Sensing Yuutarou’s distraction, the debriefing officer offers him a packet of what looks like chewing gum. Yuutarou has had some before, back when he was a little younger, back when his first kill left him almost unable to function.

He refuses to take it, holding his hand up, because he can’t stand the taste, nor how it takes his own feelings away.

“Would you prefer to talk, or write?” The officer asks, putting the packet back into a drawer and offering the table. It lights up after barely a flicker, and he offers Yuutarou a stylus.

Yuutarou had been planning to talk, had been planning not to take the easy way out because it’s so simple to do nowadays. Instead, he nods, taking the stylus and beginning to write.

-

_Date: 20/04/2091_

_We touched down at our targeted location, roughly at the scheduled hour 1300. We were faced with empty streets, eerily quiet. Due to heat signals detected, we knew we weren’t alone._

_Cautiously, we approached the target buildings. The gunmen were equipped with plasma shields, but they failed owing to an unknown error. This has been an issue on other raids before, we think it’s a new development thanks to rebel forces._

_(I suggest further missions, counterattacks, to see if we can determine the source of this development.)_

Yuutarou pauses to look up at the officer opposite, who's reading what he's writing in real-time, ready to ask questions once he’s finished.

“Water?” He asks, and Yuutarou would usually have smiled at the way he knows him so well, but he instead just nods and the officer gets up to get some for him. Once the door seals shut with a soft sound, Yuutarou sighs and rubs his face with his hand. That had been the first of many issues they had encountered that day, along with communication device failures, of which had been the real problem.

He couldn’t do anything but keep screaming to fall back as he saw them dropping so quickly one by one, the only protection being in their armour, which meant almost nothing against bullets without their core functionality, the plasma inside of them inactive.

-

The officer had gotten the hint, and is away for a while, enough for Yuutarou to finish up his report, but still comes back with a glass of water. For that he's thankful, tipping the crystal clear water down his throat. Among the few luxuries Yuutarou has in a position in the forces, clean, filtered water was by far one of the best.

Sitting back down, the officer looks through his report, frown deepening the longer he reads on. “This is troubling…” he murmurs, looking back up at Yuutarou. His gaze lingers on his face, up to his head, and back down again before sighing. “Thank you for this so soon, Lieutenant, go and rest.”

Yuutarou stands up and leaves the room after bowing, lips trembling. He had thought writing all of that would make him cry. Even with the officer gone, he shed not a single tear. Even seeing Akira’s bloodied face flash across his mind doesn’t phase him. He hadn’t even taken the gum, the fast-releasing relaxant, but he just… can’t cry.

Lost in his mind, Yuutarou wanders aimlessly aboard the aircraft, from down near the engines, where the white noise became almost deafening, right to the piloting room, a big, wide room with countless computers and buttons, a window made of glass several inches thick showing nothing but clouds as far as he can see spanning the width of it. He even stood outside the training rooms for some time, his numb mind wondering if he could somehow get some solace in training with the avatars of his lost comrades.

He can’t enter them, however. While he can’t tell for sure why, he keeps trying, eventually giving up on the sixth instance of the screen flashing red back at him. Either it’s offline or he’s being refused entry because of his condition. He grits his teeth, heart wrenching in desperation to see his comrades again, to see Akira, even if just in a simulation. Their data hasn’t been wiped, a requirement of the use of such a system means allowing your logged combat data to be used for future iterations, persisting after death.

After a long while traipsing around empty corridors, Yuutarou finds himself at the one place he had unconsciously been avoiding. Staring at the door blankly, he reaches forward with a hand to knock, whipping it back when it slides open.

To watch his commander’s eyes light up and then instantly darken makes Yuutarou’s heart drop to his stomach.

“Lieutenant.” Tsutomu states, Yuutarou sees how he flicks his gaze down the corridor, but he’s slow to process how Tsutomu says his next words, “Yuutarou, are you- shit-”

Yuutarou’s knees give out, he feels like he’s falling for eternity, mind spiralling in a haze until he completely blacks out.

-

Yuutarou’s not sure how long he’s been out. It feels like it’s been hours, but when he comes around, Tsutomu is only just laying him out on his bed, hands pulling the covers over him. “Tomu…” Yuutarou rasps, blinking his blurry eyes open to see Tsutomu looking at him, rushing to kneel by his head and card his fingers through his hair.

“Don’t speak, Yuutarou,” Tsutomu insists, giving Yuutarou a few moments to process it. He follows it like it’s an order, keeping his mouth shut while Tsutomu pets his hair and kisses the centre of his forehead.

Yuutarou blushes at the touch of his lips, the first thing he’s managed to feel since he got back besides empty is love, and it’s only now so strong that he knows he shouldn’t ever need to feel anything else to keep him going. His gaze slides over to the time on the wall. It's late… he can't remember what time he went to his debriefing, but it was still light out. He looks at Tsutomu with a frown, eyesight swimming.

"You look pale, let me get you some water. Don't move." Tsutomu whispers before turning away to do so.

Heart lurching in panic, Yuutarou throws his hand out to grab him, missing his arm by a few centimetres. "Don't leave me."

Tsutomu is several ranks above Yuutarou. He knows he has no right ordering him about like that, but he can't let him out of his sight, not after…

A lump forms in Yuutarou's throat, one that takes effort to swallow around, but Tsutomu is already back near him, squeezing his shaking hand and whispering in his ear. "It's OK, Yuu, I'm not going anywhere, it's OK."

Grip weak but desperate on Tsutomu's hand, Yuutarou focuses on his voice to calm himself down, "You're… all I have."

"I know, I know…"

Images of his squad flash in his vision, like they're playing on the back of his retina. He doesn't register tears until Tsutomu is brushing them away with his thumb. Neither of them say anything. Yuutarou is glad he doesn't ask questions, just climbs into bed next to him and curls his arms around him.

Yuutarou grips Tsutomu tightly, as if he'll lose him if he lets go. He's always been the one who likes to be held, but… he never wants his back to anyone he loves, never again. So he hugs Tsutomu to his chest and buries his face in his hair. It has that synthetic berry scent of the all-in-one shower dispensers, familiar and comforting, and for the first time since he got back, Yuutarou is calm.

"I love you, Yuutarou, I'm never going to leave you."

Tsutomu's hands tighten in the back of Yuutarou's shirt and before long he's out cold.

-

_Food. Yuutarou is running for supplies, the scent of meat, food, urging him on like some rabid animal. There’s no lack of food aboard their airship, in tight vacuum-packed containers and cooked within minutes, however most of the population is starving. On the outskirts of the megacities, in vast wastelands, is what used to be rural Japan, now all but rubble in fields of rotten crops. He stumbles over something; it feels like he kicked a root and he curses as he regains his footing. There are no trees here, however, and when he turns to inspect what he’d tripped over, he sees a body. Unmoving. Dead._

_He looks around himself... there are more. Some of them are burning, the scent of their flesh searing into his nostrils. That’s when he realises it. The scent urging him on was of this massacre, blood strewn over the grass and debris, half-burnt and desecrated corpses. Among them is one still breathing. His laboured breaths hitch in his throat and Yuutarou jumps to his aid. Although a sickening sight, he knows that he mustn’t let it faze him if he wants to help._

_But when he gets closer, the eerie gust of icy wind sends a shiver up his spine. He recognises the crest on his suit of almost disintegrated armour, his face of soft features, his cute fringe over his forehead, the blood sticking the strands to it like glue. Yuutarou drops to his knees beside him, his Tsutomu, waving his hand in front of distant, unfocused eyes. “Tsutomu…” He calls brokenly, he can feel every cell in his heart cracking when there’s no response._

Gasping, Yuutarou jumps awake, head swimming. He doesn’t know where he is, but he can still smell the aroma of burning bodies, dizzying. Within seconds, he throws his head over the side of the bed - he’s in a bed, he’s gathered that by now - and ends up throwing the remnants of his stomach bile onto the floor beneath him. He wheezes, throat burning, but he cries out, hands fisting the bedsheets. “TSUTOMU!!”

“Yuutarou! Yuutarou, I’m here, it’s fine!”

Yuutarou grabs the figure in front of him, his body so warm next to his own. Drenched in sweat, Yuutarou feels cold, like he should be among those bodies in his dream.

Tsutomu's voice seems so far away, so muffled under so much pressure. His head feels like it's splitting open. He wails, oblivious to the way his voice slices through Tsutomu's gentle cooing and rings throughout the room. He's underwater, drowning in fear, and he can't scrabble to the surface, not even while holding onto Tsutomu.

It takes many gruelling minutes before Yuutarou stops screaming. Slowly everything begins to come back into reality. The Tsutomu in his arms hums a gentle tune, fingers running through his hair and over his back. The Tsutomu in his arms is _alive._ Head throbbing, Yuutarou blinks his teary, tired eyes open to scan Tsutomu's quarters, then he slumps over Tsutomu and sobs softly, stiff fingers releasing his clothes and flattening against his back.

Tsutomu rocks back and forth, still humming softly, calming the rest of Yuutarou's distress.

"I'm sorry-" Yuutarou hiccups, his voice shredded to pieces. Tsutomu stops rocking to pull back and look at Yuutarou.

Tears still streaming from his eyes, all Yuutarou can see of Tsutomu is a blur, but he quickly reaches up to wipe his eyes with his thumbs, cheeks cupped in his hands. "You don't have to apologise, Yuu," he promises, "Just rest, OK?"

Yuutarou shakes his head, the motion sending a splitting pain through his skull and a wave of nausea through him. "Rested enough," he protests, although he's not sure what else there is to do. He just wants to be with Tsutomu.

The pleading in Tsutomu’s eyes is enough to tell Yuutarou what he’s about to say before he does. Yuutarou relents before he even has a chance. No matter how much he wants to be with him, he’ll follow his orders as his subordinate. He always has done. “Thank you.” Tsutomu says as Yuutarou relaxes, his tears now silently rolling down his cheeks. “I made you breakfast. Let me bring it over to you, OK? I’ll be a couple of seconds.”

Yuutarou believes him, pushing himself to sit up in Tsutomu’s bunk. Looking down, he sees the rancid bile from earlier and realises he hasn’t apologised. Tsutomu doesn’t seem to take notice, though, as he takes a tray of food from the counter in the kitchen over to him. He’s seen it before, every day, daily rations from a bag and heated on a preset timer. Akira hates them.

No, Akira _hated_ them.

“I can’t eat your food.” Yuutarou protests, but Tsutomu’s hand doesn’t move, holding the tray out in front of him.

“You’ll eat, and you’ll eat my food.” Tsutomu insists, although his voice is so soft. Yuutarou looks up at him, eyes and head heavy, watching Tsutomu’s firm expression. Biting his lip, he takes the tray and picks up the fork. He can’t recall the last time he ate. But he’s not hungry. Not one bit.

Still, he shovels the food down, each bite as tasteless as the last. Briefly he registers Tsutomu’s hand in his hair, but he’s gone in the next moment to mop up Yuutarou’s mess. Yuutarou feels much better now he can see what Tsutomu is doing and where he is. As long as he doesn’t go out of sight. Yuutarou follows his movements until he sits down next to him, the bed dipping from his weight.

“Sorry,” Yuutarou says, his voice broken. “For the mess.”

Tsutomu says nothing for a moment, but warmth encircles Yuutarou, Tsutomu’s arms reaching around his middle, cheek pressed to his shoulder. “Make as much mess as you want, Yuu. Scream and cry and make all the mess you want. Just… Just be OK.”

Yuutarou’s lower lip quivers. He doesn’t know if he’s OK. he doesn't know he'll _ever_ be OK. Everything hurts so much.

"I want… I want Akira back." Yuutarou croaks, gritting his teeth, remembering the image of him so pale and lifeless in his own arms. He couldn't even save him… And he _promised_. "I won't let you die, I won't let you die." The words sound just as hopeless aloud as they do in his head, as they did back then.

"Yuutarou," Tsutomu says gently, removing the empty tray from his lap, placing a hand on his knee and cupping his wet cheek to look at him. Yuutarou is too weak to resist, watching Tsutomu's eyes full of pity. "You did all you could. You were brave and amazing, like you always are. I… I should’ve known not to send you there."

There's a quiver in Tsutomu's voice, one that Yuutarou recognises all too well from his own, and he's shocked out of his own misery. How could he be so self-absorbed…? Tsutomu is on these battlefields too, he knows what this is like. Sniffling, Yuutarou looks up at Tsutomu questioningly, seeing the pain in Tsutomu’s features.

After all, as his commander, Tsutomu is the one who sends him into battle. Everything. Everything that happens… He has to live with that, too.

"Don't blame yourself!" Yuutarou shouts, "It's me, it's all me, I should've told them to fall back, I-I told Akira! I told him I wouldn't let him die and I _did_!" Yuutarou cries, hands finding the front of Tsutomu's shirt, fisting into the fabric tightly. "You sent me there and I should've proved to you that you made the right decision!"

Heaving breaths, heartbeat pounding in his ears, adrenaline pumping through him like he's on the battlefield, Yuutarou looks at Tsutomu's eyes glistening with tears. He sees one roll down his cheek as he blinks, shaking in his hold. "Yuutarou calm down…" Tsutomu pleads, his hands cupping Yuutarou's trembling fists gently. "You're going to make yourself ill."

Illness is the least of Yuutarou's worries, the persistent throbbing headache sparking pain like daggers in his skull with every best of his heart. No physical hurt could ever live up to what he feels right now. Nothing makes it out of his mouth, opening on empty words.

"I need you to calm down, I need you to be strong. You can do that for me, right?" Tsutomu pleads, eyes searching Yuutarou's as his grip slowly weakens. "That's it, I know it's hard, I know it hurts."

Tsutomu already knows.

"It… doesn't stop hurting, does it?" Yuutarou asks, watching the way Tsutomu purses his lips, slowly shaking his head.

"No… No it doesn't."

Yuutarou thinks that should lead him to break down a little more, to crush what hope he has left to dust… until he realises he's pretty much out of it already. Well… apart from Tsutomu. He releases Tsutomu's shirt altogether, all the tension leaving him. He's exhausted, in pain physically and mentally. "What… What do I do now?" He asks, voice cracking.

Tsutomu once again brings his hands up to Yuutarou's face, wiping his tears from his cheeks. He looks thoughtful as he does. "What do you _want_ to do?"

Yuutarou blinks at Tsutomu's answer. Then he blinks again.

This whole time, all of his life, he's been training for this. Ever since he figured out how badly he wanted to fight so that this world would be better for the generation after him… He'd been under orders.

His training as a recruit, his missions as a soldier, when to wake up, when to eat, when to sleep. Everything has been predetermined for him.

But he traded his own freedom for the freedom of others. That's always been his goal.

"What's going on in that head of yours, Yuutarou?" Tsutomu asks, phasing Yuutarou out of his thoughts, realising he's been silent for a few moments.

"I want to keep you safe and happy." Yuutarou answers, his weak, shaking hands finding Tsutomu's shoulders. "No matter what, I want you… I… I love you, Tsutomu."

Yuutarou isn’t sure he’s ever said that aloud to Tsutomu, too focused on the fact that he shouldn’t be, that he shouldn’t have fallen so deeply in love with his own commander. He can’t have him, he can’t.  
  
“Do you really mean that?” Tsutomu asks, his voice centred, serious. It’s a rhetorical question, he knows the answer.

“Yes… Yes, I do.”

Yuutarou watches Tsutomu swallow, curling his arms around his neck and pressing his lips to Yuutarou’s. Melting into the embrace, Yuutarou tilts his head, lips tingling as he lets Tsutomu kiss him, heat rising up his cheeks.  
  
Pulling back slowly, foreheads resting against each other, Tsutomu looks into Yuutarou’s eyes. They seem like they’re searching for something, thinking carefully, calculating. “Then let’s retire.” Tsutomu says finally, eyes growing more determined the more he thinks about it. “I’ve got money, let’s retire. Let’s find somewhere quiet, away from this mess. We can _both_ keep each other safe.”

The thought of leaving behind this… What his entire life has been for… Bringing the peace he never had to children, children the same age as he was when he enrolled, hoping they never have to be put in that situation and end up… like him, or like his comrades. How could he ever let all of them down?

Looking into Tsutomu’s eyes, however, hopeful and pleading, it makes him think that maybe, just maybe, he can seek his own peace for once.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment if you enjoyed! My and my partner will love all feedback, thank you!


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